Turning to the ladies, Mr. Brown excused himself, and, with a salute, went away, followed by the sailor.
The gaiety was now at its height. It was impossible to move about the deck, so crowded was it with dancers and promenaders. Suddenly the concealed orchestra struck up the dulcet strains of Strauss' Blue Danube, and once more the couples began gliding and turning on the spotless deck, the women's gowns making a beautiful and ever-changing kaleidoscope of color and motion. Everybody was in high spirits. The women were flirting and drinking champagne. The men were laughing and having what the Hon. Percy Fitzhugh declared a ripper of a good time. It was a festival of fortune's favorites, a merrymaking of those lucky few who have nothing to do but enjoy life's pleasures.
Up on top of the deckhouse, hidden among the ventilators and smokestacks, two men gloomily watched the gay scene below. They were grimy with coal-dust and they wore greasy clothes, with tattered coats buttoned close to their necks. Hot as was the night, it felt cool to them, accustomed as they were to the withering heat of the furnaces below. One was Armitage; the other was Bill. The two stokers had crawled out of the inferno to steal a breath of fresh air. The scene before them seemed like a vision of fairyland.
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Bill, when he had somewhat recovered from his astonishment. "It's like at the theayter. Get on to 'em lights and the flags, will ye, and the bloomin' musicians! Look at 'em women folk dancin' all decked out in their sparklers, and 'em blokes wid their open-faced clothes! Officers, too, has on their Sunday duds. And, by gosh! If they ain't drinkin' fizz! Say, ain't it great to be rich!"
"Let them dance!" growled Armitage savagely, as he sullenly watched the merry crowd. "They'd dance to another tune if the boilers were suddenly to burst, or if the ship ran foul of a rock." Fiercely, he added: "D—n 'em! I'd like to see them down on their blessed knees, weeping and praying!"
To him these men and women, enjoying themselves in fine clothes, with plenty of money, without a care, represented the enemy. They belonged to the class that had wronged him, the world that had been trampling on him all these years. They were those who laughed when he suffered, who threw him a bone as one does to a dog. How he hated them! He ground his teeth at the consciousness of his own impotence to do them injury.
"That's all right!" grinned Bill. "But anythin' as happens to 'em would catch us, too. I ain't ready for Davy Jones' locker yet."
Still watching the brilliant crowd below, as if fascinated, Armitage replied with an oath:
"I'm ready for anything. I'd just as soon go to the bottom as not. What do you fellows get out of life, anyhow? Nothing but hard work, kicks, and curses—scarcely enough to eat, while those swells have more than they know what to do with. And they never earned a cent of it." Savagely, he went on: "It's dead wrong, I tell you. Why should one come into the world poor and the other rich? Do you wonder I hate them?"